JillSwift

Hehehe! That's gawddang awesome.

Lesbians. Duh.

Carl Sagan's infectious enthusiasm in his series "Cosmos".

"I believe the universe is trying to kill me." Leaving that a personal belief, what is there to discuss? It can be responded to: "I don't belive that the universe is trying to kill you." However, that's not discussion. At best you get clusters of similar beliefs: "Oh, I believe the universe is out to kill me, too!" Still, nothing is being discussed. Until the belief is treated as a claim, then things can be discussed: "Why do you belief the universe is trying to kill you." At which point there is either support in the form of evidence, or not. And given the nature of faith, there will be no support. So again I'm led to the conclusion that a faith forum does not fit in here. And again; there are gobs of forums out there who welcome discussions of faith.

Given the nature of faith¹, it would be a very quiet subforum. ¹ Belief without evidence or despite contrary evidence.

Hmmph. Senator, Ayn Rand's philosophy is Objectivism, not Objectionism. Silly senator. Seriously, how can that not be viewed as anything other than an infantile hissy-fit? Where are the republicans who have dignity, and why aren't they telling their colleague to drink decaf?

It's true for the whole of the process. Straw man, no one has said to discard an idea "just because the explanation seems to unbelievable". What I am saying is: We can and must discard ideas not based on evidence. If we think we see a phenomenon, we test it. If our tests fail to give evidence of the phenomenon, then the original observation is mistaken. Until and unless we can evidence an idea, we can not base further ideas upon it. In the case of "astral projection", any properly blind test fails to produce a result every single time. Thus there is no basis for "astral projection" as an exosomatic phenomenon. However (and if you watched that TED talk I liked to, you'll see this) the idea of astral projection is one of those ideas that can be tweaked and changed to make it avoid finality of conclusion. Any negative test can and has been "explained away" by adding a new facet to the phenomenon. e.g. "It can only happen under conditions not met in a lab".

All crystals "random" (no charge): The opposing polarization prevents light from passing through. Crystals aligned (charged): The light passes through the spiral of crystals, shifting its polarization so that it's in line with the second filter, allowing light through.

The orientation film is what the crystals initially line up on, so that the crystals are initially in line with the associated polarizing filter.

Were they cited for what they said? Or for what they did?

Parsimony. Until and unless an entity is necessary to explain something or itself is evidenced, it is pointless to include that entity in an explanation. In this case, there is no evidence for mind duality of any stripe. There is no need for a separate entity to explain the mind when emergence does the job just fine. This isn't the same as claiming duality to be impossible. Evidence is everything. Check out this post, too: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=45406 It may help you understand why some ideas can be immediately discarded as useless.

Sorry, but this is not correct. Pseudoscience is discarding methodology in favor of seeking ways to convince others of the validity of an idea or phenomenon without evidence or in spite of contrary evidence. What you describe is more like speculation.

Yus, fangu.

Society exists for people to help one another. Police Firefighting Emergency medicine Roads Refuse control Sewage control Food production Water purification These are facets of groups of humans functioning as a society. We can't function strictly as individuals. Each facet is dealt with in different ways; Some are paid for via taxation, others on a per-use basis, some by incorporated enclaves... etc. These basics are none-the-less granted for the good of the whole.

No. Not all of us. My parents tried to instill the idea that death is somthing that comes for us all at some point, guided and decided by this super being in the sky, and that it should be welcome and celebrated as a ticket to paradise. But somehow suicide wasn't acceptable, because it flew in the face of this super being's plan. Weird. Anyway. I appreciate the occasional reminder of life's fragility. It reminds me that I should spend time right now to appreciate being alive.

For a people so disgusted by sex, Puritans sure do breed fast. I notice no one mentions the python was in the buff, too.

Oh, I'm on the side of "save him if we can" witout regard to his ability to pay, an without regard to the fact that it was all his choices that led to the grievous and fatal injury. I come to that conclusion because I know that all humans, no matter how bright or how dim, has the potential to make hideous mistakes with high costs. We've advanced enough as a society that such mistakes need not cost us our lives - though it may cost us in many other ways. In the end, a live person deep in debt and horribly disfigured brings more to society than a corpse. Perhaps It's best summed up: Dead people have learned no lesson and tell no one their sad tale. I find the Darwin Awards not to be humor, but a series of astonishing, sad and sometimes terrifying tales of what happens when someone fails to think things through, just once.

D'oh!

Yeah. Leave it be, k? It's all done and over with, no point in kicking someone when they're down (and can't defend themselves).

I did click the link. I watched the video. Poor kid. I've seen a few nasty skull injuries before, but nothing like that. I've read the story. It's a bit confusing. I gather the kid died of his injuries, but no precise established cause can be found among the mess of hearsay. So... Are you asking which I'd prefer - Death or debt? I pick debt. Though given the depth of the fracture between orbits, I'm not 100% sure he'd have survived even if he did that 10 meters from the Mayo Clinic during a cranial surgeon/neurophysiology conference.

+1, yes, stamp of approval, happiness.

*headdesk*

Heh. With the right preconceptions, all things are immoral. Thus is the quandary of morality.

This is ad hominem. Essentially "They are wrong because they dislike Janov", as opposed to "They are wrong because <evidence>". It's also an argument of "because part X is correct, all parts are correct". There is evidence contrary to "primal therapy". There is a lack of evidence in favor of "primal therapy". Therefore, primal therapy is bollocks.

That doesn't really sound like a moral issue, rather a business one. If you're harming a businesses goals, they punt you. Not over morals, but you're just in the way (Morally speaking, they have no obligation to keep you otherwise.) The moral issues I find here are of honesty and consistency. I think it's immoral to run a scare campaign (dishonest thanks to hyperbole and associative guilt). It's more foolish to run a scare campaign against marijuana and accept alcohol (inconsistent and dishonest). So I wind up where I was at the start. It's not at all surprising to me that Nutt was fired. He went against his boss' goals, so he was just in the way. No moral quandary there. What he said is true. Folks may not like that it's true, but what we like and dislike has no effect on what is true or untrue. No moral quandary there either.